Is your home the happiest place for you?

When our kids were young, “Harry Potter” was a must-read for many kids. Our children loved it so much that they said they were so addicted to Harry Potter. They loved it so much that when Harry Potter opened at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, our children couldn’t resist the chance to go.

If our children were immersed in Harry Potter during their childhood, we were immersed in the Wizard of Oz when I was a child. The story of Dorothy, a girl who lived with her uncle and her aunt in a rural Kansas village, were swept away by a tornado and fell into the magical land of Oz. Our children were able to understand the contents of the book much more easily and quickly through movies and various products that were grafted with cutting-edge IT technology from the contents of the Harry Potter books, but when I was a child, such skills were not enough, it was only with our imaginations. I had to picture what the book was talking about in my head. Such imaginations may have made me a person who likes to travel. I love to travel, and I often travel with my family. Traveling can be as short as a few days or as long as a few weeks. I enjoy the excitement of leaving to find a new place and the little unfamiliarity of meeting in a new place. However, even with such a pleasant trip, as the duration of the trip gets longer, I suddenly miss home and suddenly I have a sudden desire to return home. My inner desire for spiritual rest rather than pleasure from unfamiliar things sometimes causes a conflict.

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of home?

Do you remember the words warmth, comfort and coziness? Or do coldness, discomfort, and stiffness come to mind first? The two protagonists of the two books listed above, Harry Potter and the Wizard of Oz, did not both grow up with their parents, but with their uncles and aunts. And the two main characters left their homes to go to the wizarding school and the magical land. What meaning did the family approach to these two protagonists?

A house is more than any space. We often think of home as a place of comfort, rest, sanctuary, and refuge. It is a place where I receive my body when I am tired and exhausted, and it is a place where I can rest my weary body and soul. At least, the house we live in should be a place where these words are appropriate descriptions. And these feelings should apply equally to all family members. Only then will warmth, comfort, and coziness bloom in the home. However, the way I looked at my mother when I was little did not seem very familiar with these words to her. My dad made his own wonderful Man Cave, and he enjoyed his own rest in that space, sometimes alone with his friends. But my mom didn’t. She didn’t have her own space, so she always had her rest in the corner of the kitchen, or on the sofa in our living room, in the common space of all our family. So one day I asked my mom. Mom? Why don’t you have a room like Man Cave as daddy? Then she said, “It’s okay, the whole house is my room.” Was she really like that? Did she really not need her own space for her? For some of the family members, a home was a shelter, and for others, a home had to be a workplace. In the family, the sacrifice of one person alone will not bring true peace. So, in a house, true warmth can bloom in that house only when all members of the family understand, help, care for, and share love with each other.

Why did both writers of Harry Potter and the Wizard of Oz start their protagonist’s home environment in the same context? I believe that the home is not a place where a lack of any emotion occurs, but a place where the deficient emotion must be filled through the home. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy says: “There is no place like home”. True rest and peace do not exist outside, but ultimately exist in this home where my body and soul reside. So, it’s up to me to decide what kind of house or family to build, not someone else’s.

How is your family?